Joyce Sutphen Preparation

            The poems of Joyce Sutphen always speak to me about the large themes of mortality and life.  She sometimes presents this dramatically, referring specifically to Death with a fine example of apostrophe, or subtly, describing in great detail a moment, a living object.  In her poem, A Bird in County Clare, the simple subject pulls this theme down to the mundane level, “Earthbound”, but this creature might have been spectacular, might have once flown with a “flash of crimson gold, as the cloud and land split open”.  The bird represents to me the possibilities of near magical life until one day we, people, look back in self reflection and realize that we never left the ground, rather stayed humbly upon a “stone wall”, remaining never more than dull humanity.  But, Sutphen wonders, what more might there be?  Her subject, now a hobbling, broken creature, could have accomplished great deeds, could have sung beautiful music, yet now it waits only for death to come as another of her poems, Death Becomes Me, alludes.

            She tackles momentous ideas with a calm simplicity.  Her poem, At the Moment, again uses apostrophe to represent Death.  The tone, as most of her works, is clear and peaceful.  The capitalizations of Love and Death allude to me of the romantic poets, as do her statements, “…how far away once Death had seemed” and “then (of course) my love, I thought of you.”  In the brief poem I saw similarities with To His Coy Mistress, as the prose begins with serene and seemingly endless love but continues to remind the reader of the brevity of human life, finally ending again with love, as if pondering death’s power Sutphen decides she should make the most of the love she has and carpe diem.  The variance of the last two lines from the previous pattern and finishing with a little twist and wordplay, coupled with a nice rhyme, rings of sonnets.  Throughout the poem, however, she doesn’t lose the earthy feel, speaking of “frost and winter”, consistent with her voice that shines through every poem, a peaceful, wholesome empathy that feels just like Minnesota.